CastingWords

What CastingWords does

CastingWords is a privately held, technology-oriented transcription company headquartered in Los Alamos, New Mexico, founded in 2005 by Nathan McFarland. The company sells tiered per-minute audio and video transcription services — Budget ($1.00/minute, ~1 week), 1 Week Express ($1.50/minute), and 1 Day Expert ($2.50/minute) — alongside a lower-cost automated Machine Transcription option. Customers are individuals, SMBs, and institutions that need transcripts for podcasts, interviews, meetings, lectures, medical/legal recordings, and video captioning. Outputs are delivered in plain text, HTML, MS Word, and caption formats (SRT, VTT, DFXP).

The underlying production model is hybrid: AI-assisted speech recognition is used to produce a first-pass transcript, which is then reviewed and edited by human transcribers (drawn in part from a freelancer marketplace at workshop.castingwords.com) to deliver a 99% accuracy guarantee with a satisfaction-rework clause. The platform exposes ingestion via web, email, Dropbox, FTP, and RSS, and offers a full transcription API for programmatic ordering, status tracking, and retrieval. The company advertises 215,000 transcripts delivered to 10,000 customers and reports operating continuously since 2005.

CastingWords runs a self-serve / product-led go-to-market with no enterprise sales motion described, acquiring customers through its website, blog, social channels (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest), and organic search. Revenue is purely transactional and usage-based, priced per minute of audio or video. The company is privately held, founder-operated, has 1–10 employees, and has not disclosed any external funding, institutional investors, or parent company.

Name

CastingWords

Website

https://CastingWords.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2005

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

CastingWords is a Los Alamos-based transcription company founded in 2005 that sells tiered per-minute human and machine transcription services to individuals, SMBs, and institutions via a self-serve website and API.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Transcription Services

NAICS

Translation and Interpretation Services (54193)

akta.pro primary industry

Transcription & Data Capture (Audio/Video to Text) (BPAAAKAI)

Keywords

• Audio transcription services
• Video transcription services
• Human-powered transcription
• Machine transcription API
• Caption and subtitling services

Headquarters

HQ city

Los Alamos

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Per-Minute Transcription Services: Transaction-based pricing charged per minute of audio or video content transcribed. Multiple service tiers with varying turnaround times and price points.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

CastingWords is a transcription-as-a-service firm that converts customer-supplied audio and video files into 99%-accurate written transcripts and closed captions. Services are sold per minute across tiered turnaround options (Budget, 1 Week, 1 Day/Expert, Machine) and delivered via web, email, Dropbox, FTP, RSS, or a full Transcription API, with output available in plain text, HTML, MS Word, SRT, VTT, and DFXP formats.

Product overview

CastingWords offers a tiered transcription service portfolio with four distinct products differentiated by turnaround time and pricing. The service portfolio includes Budget Transcription ($1.00/minute), 1 Week Express Transcription ($1.50/minute), 1 Day Expert Transcription ($2.50/minute), and Machine Transcription. All human-powered services deliver 99% accurate transcripts with quality assurance by real personnel. Output formats include plain text, HTML, MS Word, and caption formats (SRT, VTT, DFXP). The company integrates AI assistance with human workers to maximize efficiency while maintaining quality standards. Transcription orders can be submitted via web, email, Dropbox, FTP, or the Transcription API, with live order tracking and delivery via email.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Budget Transcription Human-powered transcription service priced at $1.00 per minute of audio or video, with approximately a 1-week turnaround; positioned as the most affordable entry-level tier for customers with non-urgent transcription needs.
• 1 Week Express Transcription Mid-tier transcription service priced at $1.50 per minute of audio or video, delivering human-reviewed, 99%-accurate transcripts within one week.
• 1 Day Expert Transcription Premium transcription service priced at $2.50 per minute of audio or video, providing next-day delivery for urgent transcription needs with expert human review.
• Machine Transcription Automated AI-powered transcription service for basic transcription needs, delivering machine-generated transcripts at a lower cost point than human-reviewed tiers.
• Transcription API Full transcription API that lets developers programmatically submit audio or video files for transcription, check order status, and retrieve completed transcripts, enabling automated enterprise transcription workflows.

Quantifiable outcome

• 99% transcription accuracy
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

AI capability3 records

Feature5 records

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Temi: Temi is a low-cost automated speech-to-text service priced per minute, directly competing with CastingWords' $1.00 Budget tier on affordability and speed for non-critical transcription needs.
• Rev: Rev is the most direct competitor to CastingWords, offering tiered human-powered and AI transcription services (Rev Transcript, Rev AI), captioning, and global freelancer-based transcription. Both companies compete on per-minute pricing, turnaround time, and accuracy across individual, SMB, and enterprise customers.
• Otter.ai: Otter.ai is a leading AI transcription platform focused on meeting, lecture, and conversation transcription with live captioning, summaries, and integrations with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. It directly competes with CastingWords' machine and express tiers and has become a default in business workflows.
• Sonix: Sonix offers automated AI transcription with multi-language support, an editor, and export options to text and caption formats (SRT, VTT). It competes with CastingWords' machine tier on price, speed, and multi-language accuracy for content creators and enterprises.
• Trint: Trint provides AI transcription with an interactive editor, multi-language support, and collaboration tools, primarily serving journalists, media, and enterprise content teams. It overlaps directly with CastingWords' content creator/media customer segment and caption output formats.
• GoTranscript: GoTranscript is a human-powered transcription and translation service with per-minute pricing, competing head-to-head with CastingWords' human tiers on accuracy, turnaround options, and global freelancer-driven delivery.
• 3Play Media: 3Play Media provides transcription, closed captioning, subtitling, and audio description services, with a hybrid human+AI workflow similar to CastingWords. It targets enterprise media, education, and e-learning customers with compliance-focused captioning.
• Verbit: Verbit is an AI-powered transcription and captioning platform combining automated speech recognition with human review, targeting legal, education, and media verticals. Its hybrid model and caption focus parallel CastingWords' positioning and pricing structure.
• Scribie: Scribie offers human-verified transcription with tiered pricing and turnaround, with a strong freelancer marketplace. It is a direct competitor in the human-powered transcription category alongside CastingWords' budget and express tiers.

Emerging players

• Speechmatics: Speechmatics is an enterprise speech recognition API provider offering accurate, multi-language ASR that powers transcription products. It is an emerging upstream player whose improvements could either threaten or enable transcription services like CastingWords.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/castingwords
• Facebookfacebook.com/castingwords-transcription-services-163548077007835
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/castingwords
• Pinterestpinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcastingwords.com&media=http%3A%2F%2Fcastingwords.com%2Fimages%2FScreen_Shot_2012-07-31.png&description=CastingWords%20-%20Transcription%20made%20Fast%20and%20Easy

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about CastingWords